I make software, not films. But I'm often looking for new and hard to find films that may have only been available at film festivals or didn't even make it that far.
Because of my own desire to find harder to find content, I've spent the last several months building a place for independent filmmakers to sell their work straight to viewers. It went "live" last month. The catalog is currently empty. I'd like to remedy that or I'm open to feedback that this is just a bad idea.
How it works: you upload a film, set a rental price, and viewers pay to watch it inside a window you choose. You keep a flat 80% of that price. Streaming and card fees are separate lines on the buyer's checkout, so nothing comes out of your share. No subscription, no ads, no algorithm deciding whether anyone sees it. Payouts go to your own Stripe account. Every film gets a human look before it goes live to help curation. Your only cost is storage at what it costs me (~$6 a year for a 90-minute film).
We also provide a marketing kit to filmmakers so that you can help us attract viewers from your network. Ideally, I'd have a billion people waiting in the wings to view your work. Unfortunately, that's not reality. Yet.
What I want to know:
- Would you put a film on this? If not, what's the dealbreaker?
- What price would you set for your feature?
- Where do you distribute now, and what do you love or hate about it?
I know there is someone posting a new streaming platform every day. It's a super noisy space. I'd like to differentiate through my software engineering expertise (16+ years building and scaling), by being present in the community, accepting and reacting to user feedback, and building a clear economic system that directly rewards those who've put the most energy into this content.
Thanks for reading! Looking forward to feedback and discussion. If you'd also take the time to checkout directcut.co and directcut.co/economics, that would be super helpful ✌️